


a thousand miles down

by scribblscrabbl



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012), Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Implied Child Abuse, Inception-centric, Lots of Angst, M/M, arthur and john are twins, but eames tries his best to liven things up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:24:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblscrabbl/pseuds/scribblscrabbl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he tells people John’s ears stick out farther than his and that’s how someone can tell them apart. What he doesn’t say is that if they’re patient, they’ll see that John’s the better man. That if the world were burning he’d let it, but John would find it a hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt at inception-kink but it's taken me so long I've lost the link. :( Bane and Eames are not in any way connected. I stick to the basic timelines of both films, but some events unfold quite differently here.

He dreams the world is burning. His world, contained in a single-window room with a ceiling low enough to touch with his fingertips. The wallpaper smokes and curls, giving off a bitter stench. He coughs into his sleeve and it comes away red. 

His world burns and in the middle of it all is his brother, his baby brother with head thrown back and arms outstretched, both consumed and untouched.

“Come, Arthur. Come closer.” The fire burns, his brother its genesis.

He takes a step forward only to double over in agony, gagging on the smell of charred flesh. 

“Arthur, you have to keep walking, don’t look down, keep walking. _Please_.” His brother is begging and he listens, lets tears run down his cheeks until they lend him relief from the heat. 

“John, you have to put it out. Put out the fire.” His vision tunnels. He tastes blood and ash in his mouth.

“I can’t.” The shape of his brother blurs and recedes. “I can’t.”

When he wakes up his palms are throbbing, the bandages around them trapping heat, and he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe so he tears them off, but not before making sure John is in the bed beside him, sleeping deeply. 

The blisters look as angry as they did yesterday but the swelling has gone down. Katherine had wrapped them patiently, tenderly, while she explained to him that she was their mother now and she would make sure they grew up to be civilized young men. Bad behavior would not go unpunished, but he understood that, didn’t he, more than he let on. 

John had poked his head out from the entrance to the family room, eyes darting back and forth between his brother and the broken window, dirty fingers gripping the doorway. He’d given a small, firm shake of his head, telling John to disappear for a while.

He rests his hands against his thighs, fixated on the shape of the burns. He wonders if they’ll scar, even though he won’t tell either way. Whatever they have here is closer to family than they’ve ever found and he wants that for John. He wants him to remember what it’s like, because when Katherine isn’t angry, she’s lovely. He wants to remember.

*

Cobb hands over the task of recruiting Eames to Arthur because he seems to think if Eames were to entertain the idea of selling anyone out to Cobol, he’d entertain the idea less if it was Arthur. Arthur doesn’t say that just because they’ve fucked once or twice that it means Eames likes him more, and even then he probably trusts Arthur about as far as he can throw him. But Arthur buys three plane tickets, one into Mombasa and two out because he knows Eames. Eames, who only plays harder when the stakes get higher, wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.

He finds Eames in a gambling den, filled with the sort of people who’d sooner slit his throat than shake his hand. He expects them to skip the small talk because neither of them has the patience for niceties, but Eames takes him by surprise.

“How’s John doing? Last I heard your criminal ways haven’t rubbed off on him in the least. Disappointing that. I could’ve gotten used to seeing two of you.”

Arthur shoots him a withering look and he just smiles widely, suggestively, as he passes his poker chip through quick fingers. It’s been almost a year but Eames looks and sounds the same, mouth just as insolent and eyes just as watchful like he never quits waiting for an opportune moment.

“Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

“Let’s just say I have a vested interest.” Eames leans forward, invading Arthur’s space with intent, the smell of him spicy and familiar against the backdrop of Mombasa’s simmering heat.

Well, two can play at this game.

“You sure you can afford it?” He closes the distance so their jaws touch and murmurs the words right below Eames’s ear, smiling when he senses a shiver play across Eames’s skin.

“You know me. I enjoy taking risks.” Eames shifts back, eyes, mouth, and everything giving Arthur the sense that he’s more of an investment than a gamble, trapping him in a moment of indecision, body still, heartbeat thick and slow.

Then his palms start to itch and he remembers why he’s here and how it doesn’t involve the weight of Eames’s eyes pinning him to his seat, making him feel safe and threatened all at once. So he compartmentalizes because it’s how he’s taught himself to get by (how he and John got by when life kept showing them that even put together they weren’t worth half a shit). 

As expected, Eames is on board before Arthur even supplies the details, because Eames is a big picture kind of guy. (Arthur, though, he likes letting details tell the story, the same way he likes measuring the motions of Eames’s hands against the cadence of his words, the same way he likes reminding John that he’s older by three and a half minutes.)

In the end he slides Eames’s plane ticket across the table. His skin burns a little where their hands touch.

“How do you plan to lose your tail?” 

The man Cobol sent blends in about as much as Arthur does in his three-piece Armani.

“You owe me a diversion.”

“That I do.” Eames smiles and brings the last sip of his drink to his lips like it could be so easy between them if Arthur allowed it.

He throws a few bills on the table and pushes his chair back, fingers stiff against his thighs, then walks away. He thinks easy is taking the fall for John when he breaks windows with his curveballs, easy is surviving because John needs him to, and even then they never talk about easy.

*

The first time they meet Bruce Wayne is the day before they age out. They’re packing their belongings into two backpacks, one with a zipper Arthur fixed using a metal hanger and a pair of old pliers, when they see a car roll up from the window. It’s black, sleek, and expensive, and Arthur wonders how many of Gotham’s streets it could pave with gold. When Wayne steps out John squints and stares, fingers coming up absently to flake paint off the window frame.

“It’s him. It’s Bruce Wayne.” He looks dumbstruck, and then he laughs like he caught the world trying to pull a fast one.

“Yea, so what.” Arthur picks up his battered copy of _Le Petit Prince_ and thumbs the scorch marks along the binding. His other books were relegated to ash at the bottom of the fireplace because some of the boys figured out how to get at him without going through John. John’s dangerous territory; Arthur’s made that clear if nothing else. 

John lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You’ll see.”

And when Wayne strolls through the halls, polished shoes clacking against the floorboards, Arthur does see. He sees anger festering deep, a mask drawn tight, and a smile that’s almost as good as John’s on a bad day. 

“Does it matter who he is?” Arthur asks and John shrugs loosely.

“Maybe not, but it’s nice to know.”

Sometimes he tells people John’s ears stick out farther than his and that’s how someone can tell them apart. What he doesn’t say is that if they’re patient, they’ll see that John’s the better man. That if the world were burning he’d let it, but John would find it a hero.

*

“I got a promotion.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Gordon’s in the hospital. He says Bane’s building an army down in the sewers and everyone’s writing him off as crazy. Delirious from the morphine or something.”

“Do you think he’s crazy?”

“I think he’s the sanest person in this goddamn city.”

“What are you planning to do about it?

“Nothing. I plan to follow orders.”

“John.”

“Fine. I went to see Bruce Wayne, all right? And he made it clear he wasn’t interested.”

“Why don’t you leave Gotham for a while, huh? It’ll do you some good.”

“I’m a cop, Arthur. I swore to keep the city safe and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“You’re a stubborn little shit, you know that?”

“Pot calling the kettle black. How many times have I asked you to quit dream-share? And don’t tell me we need the money. You stopped doing it for the money a long time ago.”

“Fine, we’ll make a deal. I quit after this job and you come live with me for a while in Palo Alto. We’ll drive down the coast, as far as we want.”

“Is it as nice as we pictured it?”

“It’s better.”

*

Around the same time John earns his gun and his badge, Arthur’s building cities and tearing them down. He steals architecture books from the École des Beaux-Arts while John patrols Gotham’s streets, acting like he owes the city something when it should be the other way around. Arthur sends him postcards of the Tour Eiffel and the banks of the Seine, stuck in envelopes with hundred dollar bills, to tuck under the mattress for when he finally decides to get the hell out of Dodge. 

He meets Eames long before he meets Cobb. 

They’re on a job in Seoul with a payout of half a million each, provided they get out alive. He’s worked with thieves before but never with a forger, and he’s still young enough that Eames dazzles him a little, with eyes, mouth, and hands spelling out the best kind of trouble—wicked, alluring, in ways he never knew. 

He lets Eames watch him when he paces the length of their work space and fiddles with his toy models of their dreamscapes, watch him with intent he can’t decipher because the attention feels deliciously foreign. He lets Eames corner him with wide, warm hands on his hips and fill his ears with eloquent, heartfelt indecencies. And then he lets Eames fuck him on the balcony of his rented suite and call him _darling_ when he comes, because he’s already pegged Eames as a man who’s hard to have and harder to keep, and that fits into his plans just fine.

He learns that Eames likes asking questions and that he takes satisfaction in denying him the answers. They come to understand little of each other beyond the trivial idiosyncrasies they observe during working hours. Eames demands a certain temperature of his coffee and makes it a goal in life to offend people with his taste in clothes. For Arthur, orderliness is next to Godliness. 

The one detail Arthur lets slip, the evening they go their separate ways, is John.

“A brother.” Eames weighs the idea as if it’ll fill the perfect space in his puzzle of Arthur. “Younger or older?”

Arthur pauses. “Younger.” He concedes an inch. The chance of them meeting is slim to none.

Eames’s smile spreads. “Corruptible?”

“Never.”

*

Arthur rarely confuses a dream for reality. He’s only rolled his die twice, once to make sure it worked, the second time on his first job, when he was ready in theory but found it to be a whole other ballgame in practice. 

He studies the hollows of Cobb’s cheekbones, the pallor of his skin, colors leached away as if there’s no holding onto beauty without Mal. Cobb used to be the best. Now he just spins his top and makes Arthur all kinds of uneasy, unsure if seeing it topple is what Cobb truly wants.

On nights that Cobb and Yusuf retire early and Arthur’s still working, he takes a break to hook himself up to the PASIV and dream without purpose. Sometimes he remains in Paris and sometimes he returns to Gotham. John’s always with him, in one form or another, most often as a precocious eight-year-old with more questions than Arthur has answers to.

He reads about the attack on Gotham’s stock exchange in the news before he hears it from John. 

“You all right over there?” He keeps his voice even and glances over at Eames reclining in the stupid chair he wheels around whenever he wants to test Arthur’s patience. “Don’t get into any trouble I can’t get you out of.”

“This isn’t about you, Arthur.” John sounds irritable, but mostly tired, and suddenly much farther away than Arthur’s comfortable with. He needs John at arm’s length, to grab by the scruff of his neck and shake until John remembers that when it’s about him, it’s about Arthur. That it’s Arthur who will still be there after everyone else has come and gone.

But he says nothing and breathes rhythmically, keeping his eyes on Eames. 

John blows out a loud breath. “Look, I’m fine. Last I checked, there are more scary men with big guns after you than me.”

Arthur smiles without meaning to. “I’m a better shot.”

“You’re full of shit.”

They were twelve when they started collecting beer bottles for target practice from the dumpsters behind Joe’s. Stolen guns were easier to come by than loaves of bread. It was second nature for Arthur to aim, breathe, and shoot the necks clean off. He imagined he was in control of his life for once, and that the next pockmarked son of a bitch to put a hand on him or his brother would stare down the barrel of his gun and think twice.

“Next time I’d appreciate it if I heard this kind of thing from you, not CNN.”

“All right, okay. I gotta go. Give my best to Eames.”

That night he finds himself standing on Katherine’s doorstep, brass knocker cold against his fingers before he thinks better of it. The shutters are closed tightly to discourage the neighbors’ curiosity. The welcome mat is new and stiff under his feet. He retreats down the steps and heads to the backyard. He remembers the types of weeds that grew there and the rosebuds Katherine cupped in her hands like precious stones. 

He catches a glimpse of a dark head, short legs darting towards the back door, hinges creaking as it’s flung open.

“Childhood memory? Oddly enough, the sentimentality suits you.” 

Arthur twists around and sees Eames of all people, leaning easily against the picket fence like he belongs in this dream, in Arthur’s head, and not at all like he’s infringing on the recesses that Arthur’s never exposed to anyone. (John might share the memory, but he’s never seen it like this.) 

“I didn’t give you permission to be here.” There’s a gun in his hand and he points it at Eames before either of them can blink.

“You’ve got to let someone in some time, you know. It gets exhausting.”

The concern, the _empathy_ is disconcerting. His aim wavers around a point in line with Eames’s heart, shaken by the warmth it carries. He feels Eames’s boundaries shifting, reshaping, and his own unwilling to accommodate. 

“That isn’t to say you don’t have every right to shoot me.” Eames smiles like he knows Arthur doesn’t need saving, and that’s not what he’s offering.

“Arthur!” The gate bangs open at John’s urgency and he lowers the gun. His brother’s chest is heaving, elbows smudged with dirt. “You shouldn’t go in there today. Katherine is—why is _he_ here?”

There’s no malice behind the words, only curiosity. Then John tilts his head, as if his eight-year-old mind grasps something Arthur fails to.

“He was just about to leave.” 

“No, stay. We never have guests. It’ll make Katherine happy.”

“Who’s Katherine?” Eames knows it’s a loaded question, and Arthur feels nauseated by it, at once ashamed and protective of her ghost. 

“He doesn’t know?” John’s eyebrows knit in disapproval. “You have to tell him. It won’t be just you and me forever, you know. One day, we’ll grow up.”

He opens his eyes to a darkened workshop, white sheets draped carefully over Ariadne’s models, Yusuf’s concoctions sealed with stoppers like the experiments of a mad scientist. He tugs out the cannula and then settles back into his chair, eyes on the ceiling.

“We used to pretend we were lost boys. Guardians of a magical place no one else could touch. That was before Katherine.”

“What happened after?”

Arthur looks over, breath weakening because it turns out, after all this time, he’s grown accustomed to Eames.

“I guess we grew up.”

*

When John and Eames meet, it’s a sweltering late summer’s day. The surface of the Hudson steams and the concrete pathways hoard the heat of the sun. The park is overrun with kids of various shapes and sizes. One with an impressive pair of lungs circles the bench where Arthur and John sit, letting up every so often to eye them curiously.

“Not yours I hope.”

Arthur looks up and Eames is there, in an unassuming grey t-shirt so unlike his usual obnoxiously-patterned get-ups that Arthur feels tongue-tied for a moment. 

“No. Not that I know of,” he says finally, eliciting a smile that makes him realize he’s being presumptuous to think he knows something about Eames’s usual.

“Excuse me, do you two know each other?” John is studying Eames, sizing him up like he’s the type to be as much trouble as he looks. 

“Eames. We’ve—worked together.” They shake hands. “I take it that Arthur’s never mentioned me.”

“John. My brother makes a point of not talking about work.”

“We’re twins,” Arthur supplies.

“You don’t say. I hardly noticed.”

Arthur looks at Eames, then at John, and thinks about the kind of man he’s become, how little resemblance he bears now to his brother. He imagines that even their roots he’s managed to shake loose, so violent was his need to leave Gotham behind.

“Why are you here, Eames.” He doesn’t leave it open to discussion, knowing that Eames goes to Mombasa this time of year, where he takes a perverse sort of pleasure in dressing like a tourist and gambling like a local.

“Doing the tourist bit round the city. My first time, can you believe it?” Arthur remembers being on the top floor of the Chrysler Building, running on adrenaline because they hadn’t slept for fifty-two hours, and afraid they’d dream too deeply to wake.

“Have you seen Times Square, John? Nothing else quite like it.” Eames draws John into conversation and Arthur lets him, knowing it’d be an exercise in futility otherwise, what with Eames’s tenacity and John’s curiosity, both insufferable. 

When they part ways an hour later, Arthur fishes a card out of his back pocket, blank on one side, nearly illegible scrawl on the other. He leans against the railing that runs along the river.

“So. Eames.” John clears his throat.

Arthur draws out his lighter and holds the card to the flame, watching it burn until the heat licks his fingers before dropping it to the ground.

“What about Eames?”

“I’m just glad someone has your back out there.” His brother’s naivety pulls up the corners of his mouth, but he supposes it’s not John’s fault.

“It doesn’t work like that.” 

John frowns like he doesn’t understand, but Arthur thinks that in some ways his world is far simpler than John’s. In his world there are no heroes, only thieves and liars.

“It’s complicated,” he says, and turns away towards the skyline jutting out from the water’s edge, knowing it’s best that John never understands.

*

This time John calls him as the news is breaking live on CNN, filling the double screens of his computer in stunning HD. 

“Arthur, I—Jesus. I can’t talk long. The city—” The connection is poor and John’s voice comes through harsh and muddled. 

“John, get out of there, this is not the time to play the fucking hero. _Are you listening to me?_ ” He grips the arm of his chair, riding the ebb and flow of fear until he’s sick from it. Sounds of anarchy pour from his speakers.

“I can’t, I can’t. Bane’s locked down the city. If anyone tries to leave, he’ll detonate the bomb.”

Arthur feels bile rise to his throat and grabs for his coffee cup, only to knock it over. He watches the brown liquid soak into his cuffs.

“Where’s Batman?” It’s a spiteful question meant to mock John’s misguided faith. Instead it just sounds like he wants to trade in his own cynicism for something better. 

“I don’t know. I think Bane might’ve—we need to get our men out from underground. Then we find the trigger and evacuate the city. At least get the kids out in time.”

Even through the static he can hear his brother’s voice waver, conviction stretched thin over old anger rooted too deep to shake off in one lifetime. Arthur can feel his roiling and climbing with nothing to slow its ascent, grinding his bones.

“I’m not leaving you there to die, goddamn it. I’m going—”

“ _No_ , it’s fucking suicide, don’t be stupid.” John sucks in a long breath. “These are the choices we make.”

It’s the absence of regret that makes Arthur relent even as he constructs arguments in his head, all built on the glaring injustice of how their lives have played out. He should be the one punished, not John. John, who only has good in him, while Arthur’s sins stack up high enough for the both of them.

After they hang up, he sets his head in his hands, elbows on his desk, and just breathes until he feels palms rest against his shoulder blades.

Eames says nothing, just smoothes one hand along his back, then nape, threading fingers through his hair. And for the first time he can remember, he cries.

He stays put, if only because John’s voice is in his head telling him it’s all he can do. He immerses himself in his work, compiling the minutiae of Fischer’s life while ignoring Cobb’s frowns and Ariadne’s long stares. Yusuf’s jokes fall flatter than usual and Eames, Eames makes him want to crawl out of his skin. He avoids being touched, afraid there would be nothing left of him after.

He keeps an eye on the news, the madness unfolding as Gotham ruptures and bleeds with nothing to staunch the flow. He would call it an inevitability, but he knows it was never what John wanted for Gotham. John, who still has the heart to call it his city, would’ve wanted redemption, renewal.

They manage to talk every few days, the only times when Arthur’s breathing comes easy. And when John sounds more scared than tired, Arthur tells about the route they’ll travel along the Pacific and how high the sky feels there, the world wide enough for anyone to find what he’s looking for. 

The week before Fischer’s flight, John stops calling. Arthur resorts to caffeine and nicotine to help him compartmentalize, forgetting he’s supposed to eat until Eames sets a paper bag on his desk, spotted with grease, and he feels his stomach rumbling.

“Eat. I’ll feed you myself if I have to,” Eames says with eyebrows raised, reminding Arthur that he always makes good on his threats.

It’s when he’s licking ketchup off his fingers that he finds Eames watching him, eyes dark and heated, intent on pinning him to his seat and stripping his layers. In that instant he can feel Eames’s hands, the fastidious, _reverent_ way they slip off his braces and pop open his buttons, and he stumbles up from his chair, making his way outside. The last thing he wants is comfort when his brother has none.

He stays outside, smoking through his new pack of Luckies, until Cobb calls him in for a last run-through. They all know the dream levels backwards and forwards, but Cobb is nervous, eyes bruised even though he dreams for hours every night. (Arthur figures it’s _because_ he dreams.) 

The New York streets aren’t empty or crowded, just perfectly occupied with nondescript faces. The sky is clear and high, the air sweet with the smell of roasting nuts. 

“This is where Fischer will hail the cab. Arthur, you’ll be—”

“Am I going mad or do I hear sirens?” Yusuf interrupts, twisting left and right to pinpoint the sound. 

“I hear them.” Ariadne frowns and peers down Seventh before her eyes widen. “Holy shit.”

Arthur turns and sees an entire city block on fire, buildings blazing like torches and clogging the sky with smoke. The smell of destruction blows in with the wind, leaving an acrid taste in his throat.

Eames comes to his senses first. “Arthur. Arthur, you need to stop this.”

The fire’s spreading quickly but diligently, like it’s bent on purging the city of an unseen sickness. The windows above them implode. Arthur feels a shard of glass nick the back of his neck and draw blood.

“I can’t. I don’t—” The asphalt ignites in front of them and he only has a moment, enough to find a gun in his hand and shoot the others one by one, before the flames reach him.

He screams, and then he wakes.

The air in the warehouse is cool against his skin. The back of his shirt is damp with sweat, collar stiff and tight against his neck. The smell of charred flesh lingers, stinging his nose and lungs.

“God _damn_ it, Arthur, what—”

When he opens his eyes, Eames is throwing Cobb a look. He shifts in his chair and winces, the cotton of his Oxford feeling like steel wool against his skin. He knows better than to check to see he’s unscathed. If he’s learned anything in this business, it’s that the mind is a powerful thing.

“It’s late. We can all use some sleep.” Ariadne’s a little pale, eyes a little haunted by a terror that shouldn’t be hers to contend with. It’s moments like this when Arthur looks at her and sees John, a kid who grew up too quickly under extraordinary circumstances, always picking the hardest fights to win and winning them more often than not.

When Cobb walks out, he pauses for a moment by the door, one palm against the frame, looking down at his shoes. 

"We've worked hard for three weeks. We're ready."

It's a foundering conviction, grounded only by the possibility that they could still succeed by sheer force of will, and Arthur slumps back against his chair, shivering now that the adrenaline's subsided. 

Night's fallen quickly, veiling the treetops and steepled roofs beyond the window. Eames switches on a desk lamp and its light spreads far enough to discolor the tips of Arthur's shoes. 

"Want to talk about it?" 

The air feels viscous in his lungs, his breaths shallow and slow, as if time is grinding to a halt—the gears of an enormous clock moving laboriously against a mechanical flaw. He's still in the dream, he thinks, lurching forward and fumbling for his die, hand slick with panic. Only after he rolls it off his palm and onto the ground is he struck by his stupidity. 

"Shit." He rests his elbows on his knees and squeezes his eyes shut. 

He smells Eames's cologne before he feels Eames pry his hands away from his face. 

"What's it tell you?" Eames presses the die into his palm and curls his fingers around it. 

"We're in over our heads." He stands up and loosens his tie before pulling it off and throwing it aside.

"Never stopped us before." It's an argument only Eames would consider logical and it drives Arthur a little crazier.

"Jesus, Eames. None of this is like before. Mal's dead, Cobb's a walking time bomb, and I'm--"

The fear percolates and his only countermeasure is to put his fist into the wall. The skin breaks on contact, mixing blood and plaster, and the pain momentarily wipes his conscience clean.

"You're doing just fine." Eames takes him gingerly by the wrist and he flinches, reining in the impulse to jerk away. He wonders how long it's been since he's touched someone, been touched so purposefully; the warmth Eames generates is startling and makes him aware of the drop in temperature since sunset. This time of year in Paris he enjoys the most, when the days are comfortable and the nights start to cut through his cotton shirts.

"You have a funny sense of fine."

"You're quite free to go about proving me wrong." Eames's mouth twitches. He splays Arthur's fingers across his palm, knuckles looking worse than they feel, and hums in discontent. 

Arthur closes his eyes, allowing his arm to go limp, shoulders to slouch, and knees to buckle until he's resting his body weight against Eames. Not in surrender but a show of faith. It's a distinction Eames would understand, in that unnerving way of his, and, maybe for the first time, it's not unwelcome. 

"We'll have a damn good story to tell when it's over." 

It's been a while since he's told John a story, unhurried from beginning to end the way stories are meant to be told. They'll have all the time in the world when they're cruising down the coast in the red vintage Camaro Arthur keeps underground for three quarters of the year, top down, wind rushing by them so fast it'll feel like flying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few bits of dialogue are borrowed from Inception. Again, keep in mind that events unfold differently here than in the films, aka. I've condensed the DKR timeline substantially to serve my own nefarious purposes.

Budapest doesn't go according to plan. The idea doesn't take, its ambition more convincing than its execution, and it becomes every man for himself. Arthur goes stateside to the Rockies, navigating the tortuous roads that snake along sheer cliff faces. He'd plummet to his death if he wasn't careful, but it would be quick and painless compared to the alternative if their failure were to catch up with him, so he guns the engine a little harder. 

His plan is to lay low for a while before getting a new name that's easy to like and easy to forget. And then he gets a call on the phone his guy said was untraceable. He definitely needs to get a new guy.

"You've proved to be more resourceful than we gave you credit for, Mr. Blake. It's a shame we have to kill you. It's professional, not personal, you understand." The voice is pleasant enough, with a smooth British lilt that might've reminded him of Eames if it didn’t send chills down his spine.

"You'll have to catch me first." He's already out the door, arm tensed to fling the phone to the ground.

"Do we? Tell me, Mr. Blake, to what lengths would you go to keep your family safe?"

" _Arthur_! Don't—" He hears a punch being thrown, wheezing, another punch to make the message loud and clear, then blood being spat onto the floor.

"Son of a—"

"I've texted you an address. Arrive by six pm tomorrow with the rest of your team and we'll let your brother go unharmed. "

"How do I know he won't be dead by the time I get there?" He stands stock still and palms the die in his pocket, the only thing of value he never leaves behind.

"You don't. Six o'clock, Mr. Blake. I trust you won't keep us waiting."

Arthur slips the phone into his duffel and figures he should call in that favor he's been saving. 

This time everything should've gone according to plan, except it doesn't. 

It’s pouring when his plane lands. The rain whips in sheets against the plexiglass and he thinks about how he spent the better part of two days running halfway across the world, only to end up right where he started. A cab takes him to a brewery in Kőbánya where he collects his favor, packed tidily in a long black case. When he walks out ten minutes later, Cobb and Eames are there, leaning against the cab in the same clothes they wore when they left. He forgot how damn near impossible it is to keep secrets from people in the business of collecting them.

“What am I, a goddamn damsel-in-distress?”

“A charming one at that.” Eames is smiling, one of his smiles he mistakenly thinks is persuasive, and Arthur checks his watch. One more hour.

“We heard they went after John.” It’s Cobb’s way of telling him they’re invested, whether he accepts it or not. That maybe they like to think it comes down to self-preservation because it’s simpler, but it’s not what helps them sleep at night.

“If we all show up, they’ll make a trade.”

“Well,” Eames opens the back door of the cab, inviting Arthur to climb inside, “what are we waiting for?”

The address is an abandoned railway station, overtaken by wild grass and ivy. The decay in the roof exposes steel beams that cast zigzagged shadows over a graveyard of Soviet-era trains. Under different circumstances, Arthur would find it beautiful.

“Five minutes early. It seems you only needed the right incentive, Mr. Blake.” John’s on his knees with a gun pointed to his head, hands tied and mouth gagged, the cloth spotted with old blood. “Tell your team to step out where I can see them. I’m not fond of surprises.”

John stares at Arthur, then looks upward, to his right, without moving an inch. 

“And I’m not fond of people who think they can use my brother as leverage.” He stalls for time, hoping to God Eames is lining up his shot because they only have one chance to get it right. “I guess we’re at an impasse.”

He hears the MP5 firing. Four seconds later, there are three dead bodies on the ground and warmth trickling down his chest as he yanks the cloth from John’s mouth.

“Arthur.” He hears his name from all directions, and then the pain kicks in.

*

The morning they fly to LA, Arthur’s buttoning his cuffs in front of the TV when he sees the bodies dangling from the cables of the Metro-Narrows Bridge. 

_—identified as Special Forces Officers David Bradley, Frank Lang, and Captain—_

He makes it to the bathroom just in time to retch into the toilet, both hands gripping the seat, tasting the Thai he had for dinner last night. He’s met men like Bane, lunatics with a God complex convinced they can better the world with their perverse brand of justice. He sees those bodies again, strung up by their necks, swaying in the wind, and shamelessly hopes that John takes one look at them and forgets about being so goddamn heroic.

When Eames comes looking for him a half hour later, he’s still sprawled on the tiles, back against the bathtub, swallowing down the bile that keeps rising in his throat.

Eames’s mouth says, “You’re wrinkling your favorite suit,” while his eyes say something else. _I wish it didn’t have to be this way._

“Bane took those men—”

“I saw.”

“They probably have wives, kids at home.” Arthur breathes deeply through his nose to quell the nausea. “I don’t—Jesus—I don’t even know if John’s alive.”

“John’s more capable than you give him credit for.” 

Eames holds out a hand, but he stands up without taking it.

“Don’t make it sound like you know him. He’s my brother. You have no fucking clue.” 

He’s not really sure what he’s trying to say, or how to say it. That with John, there’s no standing back. That he might not think twice about gambling his own life, but John’s is never on the table. That what terrifies him, more than death or Limbo, is a world without John in it.

Eames watches him, breaths measured and quiet.

“He doesn’t need you to protect him.” _He doesn’t need you_.

In the time it takes for Eames to blink, Arthur’s closed the distance between them, landing his punch with enough conviction to make Eames stumble backwards. The anger that ballooned in his chest, so quickly he felt heat against his ribs, leaks out with a hiss through his teeth. 

It’s only after Eames wipes blood from his mouth that Arthur catches on. It was his pressure point and Eames found it, like some kind of therapist who decided Arthur needs to hit rock bottom before he can climb back up, and he thinks about clocking Eames again for good measure.

“Fuck you,” he says without meaning it. The anxiety is still there, an anomaly in his heart, but he can breathe now, think about putting one foot in front of the other without feeling like the ground might open up beneath him.

“We have to do this right. No mistakes.” 

He knows Eames is just the kind of man to bet on long odds.

When they get downstairs, Cobb’s leaning against the open door of the cab, drumming his fingers against the window. He raises his eyebrows at the sight of Eames, the bruise deepening above his jaw line, spreading outward in a vulgar shade of purple. It’ll take a few weeks to fade completely. In the dream, though, he’ll look good as new.

“We have a plane to catch,” is all Cobb says, but when he looks at Arthur an understanding passes between them that they don’t need to discuss. They’ll do the job and then they’ll walk away, unconditionally. Because at some point they found they’d spent years dreaming, world-building, being everywhere other than where they were, only to wake up to lives they never wanted, for themselves or for each other.

It’s when they’re on the plane and Arthur takes those last few breaths before going under that he feels the sudden compulsion to apologize, to grab Eames’s wrists and let the warmth anchor him so he can follow it back up once they’re done, miles below the surface. 

*

His favorite time of the week comes when Katherine puts on her apron, pushes the window open in the kitchen, and plays Edith Piaf while she bakes cookies. John prefers to lock himself in his room and listen to his own music, but Arthur sits at the counter and doesn’t leave until the timer dings.

Katherine hums and sways a little to the music. Neither of them understands the words, but they’re enchanted all the same, by the exoticism, the soaring voice that makes the world feel infinite within their finite space. He likes to think that in those moments he and Katherine share a rare thing, a curiosity that extends farther than their feet have ever taken them. Sometimes he closes his eyes and sees undying lights casting the kind of glow that turns everything into gold.

He steals that tape, the day Katherine gives them up like she only borrowed them to see if she was cut out to be a mother. He doesn’t tell John because it’s not important; he feels a little stupid, but he hates leaving empty-handed, maybe more than he hates leaving. The tape burns a hole in his pocket as he sits in Sarah’s car and watches the city go by, remembering how it went the other way the day they came.

He never finds a tape player, though, and then he forgets about it until a job brings him to Paris. He’s at the top of Montmartre his first night, weaving through cobblestoned streets towards the Basilica, when he sees Eames, sitting cross-legged at a brasserie, raising a cup to his mouth and studying the menu. He figures if he speeds up, he could walk right past without being noticed, but then Eames looks up at the precise moment of his indecision.

“Arthur.” The sound is a little too intimate for comfort and, paired with Eames’s smile, makes him feel exposed, like there’s a hundred pairs of eyes watching, waiting for him to reciprocate.

“Eames. It’s been a while.”

“So it has. And you’ve made quite a name for yourself. So I hear.” Dreamshare isn’t a small market, not by a long shot, but word travels fast when there’s a high demand for competence and low tolerance for mistakes.

“I didn’t think you ever made a point of listening.” He stays standing and slips his hands in his pockets. From this vantage point he feels like he could figure Eames out, uncover the truths Eames is so clever at concealing.

“I’m selective.” There’s a fondness in Eames’s tone, in the way Eames looks at him that shakes up his heart. “How else would I know you’d be in Paris?”

And Arthur’s not sure if it’s just a line Eames uses to get laid, but he lets it persuade him all the same. They continue the walk to the Sacré-Cœur together, digging their heels in as the road gets steeper. And then he hears the music.

“Wait.” He stops abruptly. “Listen.” 

There’s no mistaking it now and Arthur veers left, off their route. It’s a man on a trumpet, clothes eccentric, probably secondhand, and he’s playing La Vie En Rose. It sounds strange without Édith Piaf, a little lonely, but Arthur remembers clearly enough to fill her in. 

_Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas._

The night air feels softer, sweeter against his face. The distant lights look brighter, eternal, and he thinks that this city is exactly what he imagined twenty years ago.

“Would be a shame if we didn’t dance. For a little while.” 

Arthur turns to see Eames offering his hand and, if only because it’s just this once and it’s Édith Piaf, he can’t say no. So they dance. And when the trumpet player packs up and leaves for the night, they hardly notice.

*

They pick up Fischer, easy peasy, make a few threats to shut him up, and Arthur thinks they might just pull this off.

“I think we’ve got a tail.”

He hardly hears Eames he’s so focused on the road, the cars in his way, and the fear of setting off a firestorm again that’ll raze this level to the ground before they can get to the next one.

“What?”

“I think we—” An SUV rear-ends them, hard enough to shake up his insides. It’s when a bullet shatters the rear windshield that he figures out why.

“Shit.” He slams on the gas and they lurch forward a few yards, only to be blocked in by two more SUVs. He swerves left, forcing the cab through a narrow gap. Another window explodes and this time he takes a hit to the shoulder—a standard 9 mm by the feel of it—but he’s riding high on adrenaline and, frankly, just pissed off that he didn’t see this coming.

Eames takes down a few more projections before they’re finally accelerating down open road. They pull into the warehouse behind Cobb’s sedan, and drag Fischer to the back room. The moisture in the air heightens the smell of rust and decay, of something neglected then forgotten.

“What was that back there?” Cobb looks murderous and Arthur doesn’t blame him.

“Those projections were trying to kill us.” Ariadne’s frowning, trying to solve the puzzle. “Who brought them in here?”

“Fischer. His subconscious is militarized. He’s been trained to defend his mind against intruders.”

“It should’ve shown on the research—” The adrenaline’s all but worn off and Arthur feels the burn now, radiating from the wound, like someone’s stuck him with a hot poker. He’s been shot more times than he can count, but he can’t say the pain gets any easier. At most, he’s learned to bear it with less complaint.

“Let me see your shoulder.” Eames steps forward to inspect the damage. “No exit wound. You’ll feel less pain when we get to the second level.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“It damn well should’ve shown on the research. This wasn’t part of the plan.” Cobb’s pacing now, eyes frantic, and it unsettles Arthur, more than Fischer’s army, more than the certainty that there is no certainty when they’re going three levels deep.

“For God’s sake, the man’s been shot. What’s the worse that could happen? If we die, we’ll just wake up.”

“No.” Cobb stops there, and Arthur gets an inkling.

“What do you mean, no?” Eames blinks.

Yusuf fidgets and clears his throat. “We’re too heavily sedated to wake up that way. If we die, we—”

“Drop into Limbo.” Arthur fills in the blanks, and it puts a few things into perspective. For one, his shoulder might hurt like hell but at least he’s not bleeding out, drifting towards the shore of his subconscious. 

“Limbo?” Ariadne’s frown deepens.

“Unconstructed dream space. You weren’t going to tell us, were you? Everything was going to plan—until Fischer’s private army started using us for target practice.” Eames is staring at Cobb like he’s got some nerve, leading them into the fire to atone for his own mistakes. “You had no right.”

By now Arthur knows a thing or two about Eames. He knows Eames would be the last person to insist there was any honor amongst thieves, but he’s come to trust Cobb against his better judgment. Cobb hasn’t given him a reason not to, until now, and the betrayal must sting, maybe more than he expected. 

Arthur, though, he’s suspected for a while that Cobb’s been holding onto a few dark secrets, buried so deep even he has a hard time rooting them out. Arthur sees shades of them whenever he sees Mal, beautiful as ever, but menacing like she never was. And he’s kept his mouth shut because he understands what it’s like, to be shadowed by specters of an old life that won’t be shaken off. He understands, especially now that it’s not only about burying the dead, it’s also about preserving what’s left.

“You’re right,” Cobb concedes, “but sticking to the plan is still our best shot. We move fast, then we come back up using the kick. We stay on this level, we won’t make it to tomorrow.”

“Eames,” Arthur says, to get Eames to look at him, to remember they’ve come a hell of a long way and if those miles have taught them anything, it’s that they have a knack for surviving.

The moment lengthens, with Arthur tethered to Eames and Eames to him, like they’re already in Limbo where time and reality cease to be meaningful.

Then Eames turns back to Cobb. “Well, what are we waiting for then?”

By the time they get Fischer into the van, the projections are closing in. Arthur grabs an assault rifle, pulling the doors of the warehouse open a crack to buy them some time. Rainwater sluices down the frame, spraying his cheek and neck. His first shot hits his target, but the next few are pathetic attempts.

“Shit.” He lowers the rifle, pressing his palm against his shoulder as if he can contain the pain. His hand comes away bloody.

“Mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Eames’s voice is smooth and low by his ear.

He turns to see Eames hoisting a grenade launcher, then firing with the precision of a marksman. The explosion on the roof flares hot and bright against the surrounding gray.

“I’d say you were compensating for something, but—”

At that Eames’s mouth spreads into the kind of smile that makes Arthur imagine it’s all right, even if they end up dreaming forever.

“I think we resolved that a long time ago,” Eames says, eyes holding heat that envelopes Arthur on all sides, pressing down and in like it can cleanse him if that’s what he wants.

Then Cobb is yelling at them to get into the van and they’re leaving the warehouse behind, swerving wildly to avoid their pursuers.

 _Remember Edith_ , is the last thing he says to Yusuf before he goes under a second time.

He’s sitting with Ariadne on the sidelines when he sees the blonde, dark eyes, creamy skin, all legs, but a little too contrived for his tastes. She turns towards them as she walks past and winks only after making sure she’s secured his attention, smile more predatory than coy.

“Did that projection just flirt at you?” Ariadne raises her eyebrows, taking another glance at the receding figure in four-inch heels.

Arthur stifles a laugh. “That was Eames.”

“ _Eames_?” Her eyebrows climb higher. “So that’s what he meant back in the van. I’m impressed.”

The foundations of the building shake suddenly, sending tremors through his limbs. A storm erupts outdoors and batters the windowpanes, the sky darkening impossibly fast.

“Don’t be. His ego’s already big enough.” Arthur stands, then pauses a second, fingers coming up to his shoulder as the pain creeps in a little . “Shall we?”

It’s when they make their way to the elevator that Arthur sees him, an eight-year-old boy turning the corner and disappearing, clothes a little too big for his frame, shoes perpetually untied.

“Arthur. Arthur, what’s wrong?”

He reigns in the need to run after John, a compulsion that still feels familiar after all these years of growing up and living apart.

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

He sets up the explosives in the fifth floor room just in time for Fischer’s arrival, and then Browning’s, the game playing out like clockwork. After Fischer goes under, Arthur pulls out another IV line and brings it to Eames.

“Security’s gonna run you down hard.” Eames lies back onto the carpet as Arthur kneels, wrapping his fingers around Eames’s wrist and pressing down to pick out the pulse, a welcome accompaniment to his own heartbeats.

“Then I will lead them on a merry chase.” Arthur smiles.

Eames takes a hold of his wrist, stilling his motions, and just watches him for a moment, like they have a choice, like maybe it’s not too late to carve out their own remote piece of the world, where their days are measurably and perfectly certain.

“If I don’t make it back up—”

“I’ll come find you.” He can’t say when he made up his mind but he’s sure, in the same way he’s sure, without having to ask, that Eames would do it for him.

And just before Eames closes his eyes, Arthur leans down to press their mouths together, inhaling the scent of Eames’s cologne, warm and muted, imagining briefly that they’re in Paris, under its glow.

A moment later he’s standing up to observe the sleeping bodies. When he turns to walk out the door, John is there.

“What do you think they’re dreaming about?”

He’s so startled he stumbles backwards, nearly tripping over Eames. John walks over and peers at Cobb.

“He’s lost a lot, hasn’t he? Mal and his kids, all in one breath.” This John has always been too astute for his age and size, an old soul contained in a boy’s body. “We have each other at least.”

“He’ll be able to go home soon.” 

“Home.” John tilts his head. “Can we go, too? You’re always so far away, in places I can’t reach. Let’s go home, Arthur.”

His lower lip trembles a little, and in his eyes Arthur sees loneliness, abandonment.

“We’ll go home, I promise. But right now, I have to take care of something, okay? Stay here.” 

He doesn’t wait for a response before he walks quickly out the door, closing it gently. When he looks up, the elevator down the hall opens and a security guard steps out. He heads in the opposite direction, ducking behind a wall and waiting for the sound of footfalls before drawing his gun. He steps out to shoot but the man’s quick enough to knock it out of his hand, hauling him to the left and slamming him into the wall. As soon as he can suck in a breath, he swings out and lands a punch to the gut.

The sound of a door shutting travels down the hallway. He strikes out at the man’s head with his elbow and turns to see John standing a few yards away.

“John, get back in the room! Now!” He takes a blow to the jaw and this time when he looks, there’s a second guard at the other end, lining up his shot with John in the way. John just watches him, refusing to move.

“No!” Terror floods through him one second and the next second the floor is tipping, rotating out from under his feet, the walls turning with it like he’s stuck in a giant carnival ride. There’s a scream, and then a thud.

He slides and hits the wall, then finds his footing and runs a few steps before he slides again, trying to get back to the room, to make sure John’s okay. A sharp tug on his pant leg knocks him off balance and the remaining guard starts dragging him backward until he kicks out and shakes him loose. The walls are spinning unpredictably now, and he adjusts his equilibrium to the gravity shifts. 

The guard catches up to him, throwing him against the opposite wall. They grapple before slipping out of each other’s grip as the hallway tilts again. Arthur regains his balance and spots the gun jammed into a corner, diving to retrieve it then twisting to shoot the projection at point-blank range.

When he gets to his knees, the hallway’s stopped spinning. 

“I’m sorry, Arthur.”

He looks up and John is there, unharmed, scuffing the carpet with one foot. The relief chokes him, then leaves him weak and shaking, heart blissfully weightless for just a moment.

“I’m always getting you into trouble. Is that why you left? Why you won’t come home?” John takes a step forward. There’s anger seeping in now, crowding out the loneliness. “After all these years, what are you still running away from?”

The bang of a door makes Arthur turn away. When he turns back, John is gone. Then the music starts to play.

_Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien._

*

The foster care system is designed to chew kids up and then spit them back out. It’s not what Arthur says, but it’s what he thinks. Sometimes they survive, most times they don’t. In the end, it’s the luck of the draw. 

Foster parents return with boys, time and again, calling them misbehaved, ungrateful, angry. Always angry. Like it’s something they should’ve grown out of, a tantrum they learn not to throw. The trick is to smile in the mirror every morning, just until it looks real, until they pass as normal instead of angry. He and John figured it out a little too late, but it doesn’t matter. They just need to get by for a few more months before they’re free to leave on their own, seek out a place where nothing reminds them of where they started. 

Every Sunday they go to the laundromat down the street, out of habit more than anything else. They find and appropriate knick-knacks that customers leave behind, old gloves, ballpoint pens. Sometimes a few dollars, occasionally a ten. They store it all in an unmarked shoebox that they only open when they have items to add.

This time all they find is a pair of dice, red, semi-transparent, with beveled edges. For a while they just stare as the washer below thrums, reminded of their dad, who was there one minute and gone the next, all because of a thing he hated but still couldn’t live without, that blinded him to what he was neglecting.

Finally Arthur picks them up and rolls them in his palm.

“Heavier than I expected.” He hands one to John, who holds it up to the light with two fingers.

“Wonder who left them here. Odd things to keep in your pockets.”

“Maybe the owner thought they’d bring him good luck. Like a horseshoe or a rabbit’s foot.”

John lowers his hand and lets the die sit insignificantly in the center of his palm.

“It’s just chance. Simple probability,” he says, even when he knows nothing is so simple where people are concerned, and that’s the ingenuity contained in these small plastic cubes.

This time when they go home, Arthur doesn’t add his die to the shoebox. Instead, he carries it around with him, without really knowing why, every so often sliding his hand into his pocket to roll it around in a loose fist. 

A few months later, one week after their eighteenth birthday, they’re at the train station waiting for Arthur’s one way to Boston. Turns out John never intended to leave, but he kept it to himself because he didn’t want to fight with Arthur. He knew Arthur wouldn’t understand, and Arthur knows he can’t talk John out of it. He thinks it could be good for them, to finally learn how to be a whole instead of a half, that being alone isn’t equivalent to being lonely. He thinks it could be liberating, taking a leap and only having to worry about his own two feet.

The loudspeaker announces the arrival of the 735 to Boston and he heaves his bag over his shoulder. It’s barely morning, and dawn filters weakly through oblong windows designed to make the space seem bigger than it is.

“Come back with some good stories.” 

The unrelenting pace of passersby makes him aware of their stillness, neither wanting to take the first step toward their separate destinations, though Arthur imagines they’ve long put in motion the forces that will make their paths diverge for the first time.

“Don’t get into too much trouble when I’m gone.”

He turns and walks away, then hears his name. When he turns back he sees John retrieving something from his pocket and holding it up to the light. The red plastic shimmers a little.

“Time to make our own luck.”

Arthur wraps his hand around its twin in his own pocket and smiles.

*

LAX is crowded and stifling, inundated with noise, as soon as they clear customs.

Arthur grabs his bag off the carousel, rotating his left shoulder where an ache still lingers, and spots Eames leaning against the wall.

“How about we get out of here?” 

Eames is smiling, eyes a little crinkled, and Arthur thinks he can get used to the sight.

“Not before you see this.”

Eames holds up his phone, one boldfaced headline showing at the top. _Breaking News: Batman Pulls Gotham Back From Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, Dies A Hero._

“Jesus.”

It takes him three seconds to pull out his own phone and call John.

“Arthur.” John sounds tired down to his bones, but _alive_ , and Arthur turns to slump against the wall beside Eames before sliding down to sit on the floor.

“Jesus,” he says again, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to imagine John doing something mundane, sitting on the couch, folding laundry, watching the sun set from his front stoop, waiting patiently for the light to refract and scatter from the atmosphere.

“I’m okay, we’re all okay. Wayne, he—”

“He did a good thing.”

“It’s not right, that no one knows. He didn’t just die; he died saving Gotham. He deserves to be remembered that way.” It’s that anger again, gunpowder spread too close to the fire.

“Come to Palo Alto, John. Like we said. Give yourself some time off, all right?” Time to breathe, to mourn, and then move on knowing the one thing he wanted to preserve still stands.

John expels a sigh, anger dispersing. “Yea, okay. Okay. I need to attend the funeral, and then I’ll fly out. Give me three days.”

On the third day Arthur’s looking out the window of his condo, down onto the suburban street lined symmetrically with low hedges and thin, flowering trees, when his phone rings.

“You on your way to the airport?”

“Arthur, I can’t make it. Something’s come up.” John’s voice sounds like it’s echoing within a wide, hollow space, strange and solitary. Nowhere Arthur’s been, he’s sure of it, and it makes him all kinds of uneasy.

“What? Where are you?”

“I’m fine, don’t panic. I’m under the Wayne estate. I think.”

“John, what the hell is going on?” Arthur hears the distinct sound of water dripping and John’s light footfalls, his breathing a little erratic.

“I really couldn’t tell you, but when I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

“You’re killing me here.”

“I’m sorry. I know we had a deal and I still plan to make good on it, I promise. In the meantime, I’ve sent a substitute in my place. Time to stop dreaming and start living a little.” He can hear John’s smile. “Call you soon.”

He stares at the ended call on the screen blinking smugly at him, and then hears a knock on the door. He opens it to reveal Eames in pressed gray slacks and a crisp blue shirt with rolled sleeves, sunglasses hooked into the open V of the neckline. The bruise looks ghastly now, spoiling the symmetry of Eames's obnoxiously beautiful face, and Arthur's hand twitches with regret.

“Hello.”

“Hi. How—” A substitute. The sneaky little bastard.

“I hope you haven’t gotten tired of me yet.” Eames smiles winningly but there’s an uncertainty, a rare, exquisite vulnerability that stills Arthur’s breathing for a second.

“No. I mean, John said—he was supposed to—”

Eames closes the distance and silences Arthur with his mouth, hands coming up to frame his face, a little unsteady but warm, their weight a perfect counterbalance to the weakness in his knees. He hooks his fingers into Eames’s belt and maneuvers them until Eames’s back hits the door before pressing in, lining up their bodies from chest to thighs. Eames licks into his mouth, tongue slow and hot, one hand sliding to the side of his neck, thumb pressing down against his pulse like he’s still searching for affirmation, that he can take Arthur apart as easily, and swiftly, as Arthur ruins him. And Arthur responds by thrusting his hips forward, just once, to draw out that sound that he remembers, low and intimate in Eames’s throat.

When they pull apart, Arthur rests his forehead on Eames’s shoulder and breathes.

“How about we take a pleasant trip down the coast, just you and I?”

And Arthur just nods, curling his fingers around the thread of reality he discarded when he started running so many years ago.

An hour later they’re flying down Route 1 in his Camaro, tracing a thin line between land and water that promises the horizon when they look out. The wind whips around them, cleansing the air of noises of civilization. 

“Where do you think you’ll go when we reach the end?”

Arthur thinks of John, and about how far they’ve come.

“I think I’ll go home.”


End file.
